Analysis on IT trends and competitive strategies, with emphasis on micro processors, computer systems and networks. Based on latest news, backed up with real data, this site intends to provide a true and realtime picture of the fast changing IT landscape. This journal strives to be accurate on facts and sharp on criticisms. You may email your opinion to sharikou@yahoo.com or post comments here, be cool and intelligent.

About Me

Freelance journalist on IT matters. Some of my writings have been published on online IT journals. Any original content on this journal is Copyrighted, but it's free for non-commercial use. Any Trademarks used on this site belong to their respective owners. Some of the pictures are links. If there is any issue with the content of this site, please email sharikou@yahoo.com .

DELL looks increasingly silly. Everyone is there pumping Socket F, but DELL is missing. The only news about DELL are Core Duo laptops exploding all over the place, burning tables and trucks. Apparently, Dell's non-existent R&D is a limiting factor.

AMD updated its pricing list. The Opteron 2210 1.8GHZ dual core CPU is at $255, and the X2 5000+ (2.6GHZ) is at $301. You should notice that AMD is now selling Opteron 8216 HE 2.4GHZ. You also notice that there are some empty spots in AMD's lineup, which indicates that AMD's CPUs are so uniform, it can simply rate them at different speeds without the intermediate grades.

Gone are the days Intel charges $3000 for its Xeon MP CPUs. INQ reported that the 16MB Tulsa is priced at $1980. But only total retards will buy such a chip, you spend more money cooling the sucker and get half the performance of an Opteron. Eight Tulsa Xeon cores hanging on a 667MHZ FSB is retarded, each core gets a 80MHZ share, less than the bandwidth of a 80486.

One thing I notice is that most of the designs use Nvidia's chipsets. All SUN designs use Nvidia chipsets and all SuperMicro socket F boards are based on Nvidia. I recall during Broadcom's 1Q06 CC, they claimed they would take most of the next generation Opteron chipset business. I guess Nvidia fought back..

Why do you keep saying "frag" or variations thereof? It really sounds ridiculous. It's also ridiculous when you say "dude" over and over.

You are a ridiculous human being. K8L may very well be good technology, we'll have to see. But your boring iterations of the same made up stuff you spout constantly are getting boring.

Let's see...

Intel cores cost what, $100 to make, AMD costs $40. This is obviously a ridiculous lie, why don't you just admit you just make stuff up like a 4th grader?

Intel Core Duo causes exploding Dell, despite recent recall of the Sony battery cited as cause. Yet another of your ridiculous, bald-faced lies. Are you going to admit you were wrong, or spin more vague ridiculous idiocy about "but the CPU caused the batter to fire!"?

Intel "BK" in 5-7 quarters. Statement of opinion, but about as valid or likely an opinion as one claiming you are Napolean.

Intel and AnandTech lie about benchmarks, despite the fact that they have been proved true.

These silly claims that 4x4 will be 80% faster than Core 2 Duo. Don't be silly, that's utterly ridiculous unless you're calculating Pi on all 4 cores at once.

In short, you are a liar, an idiot, and a blowhard. It's fun watching your sanity implode more and more with each outright lie and overblown theory you bloviate on.

In addition to launching its Next-Generation AMD Opteron processors, AMD also announced the completion of the design, or tape-out, of its native Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors.

You know it doesn't leave me very confident that AMD just finished the design of K8L. Generally it takes about a year from tape out to launch so AMD will have to be really on the ball to make a mid-2007 quad core introduction since there's no margin for error.

What a beauty: "As the only x86 server processor with planned upgradeability to native quad-core within the same thermal design power envelope." from http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060815/20060814006128.html?.v=1

This reminded me a looooong time ago, HP had a program selling 80486DX-33 with a promise of free upgrade to 80486DX2-66. The drop-in upgrade is a now brain-winner.

Unfortunately for Intel, the Woodcrest, Conroe must eventually takes in the chipset. So, the drop-in path will be disrupted.

I must admit, the day I learned that Woodcrest and Conroe did not have intergrated memory, I breath out "Phew". I want to see AMD to get to 50% and the CPU industry became ATI vs Nvidia where there is no bully, not bad-arse Intel.

I would not mind to see AMD bully Intel a bit. Pay-back is sweet too. Hehe...

My home town is Oregon and I know a lot of my friends will loose jobs if my wish come true....sad, isn't it. Kthnxbye, sorry for my rambling. I am in a good mood today.

The only downside to this announcement is the high prices on Socket 940 processors vs. the new Socket F.

In other words, "no price cut".

It is one thing to encourage adoption of your new platform, another thing to penalize customers who wish to upgrade their existing systems. From this point on, Socket 940 is effectively dead due to the high pricing.

For building new systems, the pricing on the new Socket F Opterons seems to be very close to Intel's Xeon chart. If so, an Opteron system will be a bit cheaper due to DDR2 RAM vs. FB-DIMM.

From the initial information, the new Socket F Opteron looks like a solid move by AMD. And a year from a now, we will see if K8L can deliver on the hype.

I kind of see where Intel is heading ..It is middle of August ..no wide availibility of CORE 2 (can anyone even name a decent Motherboard ??) And before even the CORE 2 is ramping and struggling to take off ..Intel will be forced to paper launch their Copy and paste QUAD core just to stay afloat. This will be like 2X Osborne effect ...and when do you think the Quad Core is gonna ramp ? Intel's whole business model is nothing but old school where they would happily sell crappy architecture over and over the years.. how do you think it is going to survive when AMD does disruptive improvements every few months ..and delivers them too..

Why dont you publish any facts?http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/08/15/dell_laptopbattery_recall/

Ohh that link must have hurt your pride. But im pretty sure you wont publish this post, just like the one I made on Woodcrest. More then 10 independt 3:ed party reviews that you didnt want your readers to see

"DELL looks incerasing silly. Everyone is there pumping Socket F, but DELL is missing. The only news about DELL are Core Duo laptops exploding all over the place, burning tables and trucks. Apparently, Dell's non-existent R&D is a limiting factor."

One must remember that Dell doesn't design most of their notebook systems.

It's still poor management on Dell's part, but a lot of the problems with notebooks have been due to poor testing (and poor quality batteries).

As we know, quality is not the hallmark of "Made in China" except in a few top-end production facilities. So if you are buying millions of batteries you must put your own quality control processes in place.

Recalling 4+ *million* batteries (just for Dell) tells you that management was too cheap and did not spend enough effort on quality.

As for Dell Opteron systems... I am looking forward to seeing how the price compares to Sun. I would guess the Opteron systems will start showing up starting in October.

"So while the Opteron's dominance in 64-bit processing has been essentially eliminated by the new Intel architecture, the advantages of HyperTransport over FSB remain.

Intel is thought to be developing its own advanced bus technology called CSI, which may or may not stand for Coherent Scalable Interconnect. Whatever it will be labeled, the rumor is that Intel will be offering a next-generation, processor-to-processor interconnect sometime in 2008. The only problem is that this technology appears to be targeted for the future quad-core Itanium processor (Tukwila), not any x86 Xeon products." from:

Interesting dell battery recall on al-jazeera.net (yeah google gave it to me as a link...). Sony batteries eh? Random.. wonder if the vaios are affected then - maybe it's being kept hush hush. Still interested to see if its thermal throttling failiure causing current spikes and batt overloading or not (AS A CAUSE NOT THE ACTUAL FIRE).

Linky:http://nig.gr/10hp

Socket F looks to be very good as future upgrade/compatibility options are concerned (kinda like AM2/AM3?). That combined with a few optimisations that appear to be there and a bit of clock scaling, we could see it at least equal and/or beat the current woodcrest lineup at 4 cores and up, making this a very good move from AMD. Saw some socket F boards floating around somewhere on a retail site a few weeks ago, can't remember where now though!! US site though. Hopefully the availiability will be more now with this announcement.

But I do hope AMD gets some credibility and does not do a paper launch like everyone does at some stage, this would just hurt their cred when it is badly needed to make them look better in relation to the core2 architechture and derivatives launch.

It's an extension AND true 64bits, extension because the 32 bits still working well, and true because it is 64 bits...Itanium born as a 64bits system, x64 born as a 16bit (8086) then go 32bits and finaly 64bits, but it don't make itanium better than x64 system

Hey stupid. The whole world knows that it was the batteries. Just look now, they are bringing back them, because it WASN'T the CPU, ignorant fanboy. Open your eyes, your making yourself the laughing stock of the world. Feel really sorry for you. Nobody belives your IDIOTIC and unrealistic blog. I go here once in a while to get a good laugh, and quote you in other forums, so they too can realise that you are a looser.

You know it doesn't leave me very confident that AMD just finished the design of K8L.

Apparently the design of the K8L die is supposed to be a sort of modular design. This would allow continuous incremental improvements every so often, without monolithic style changes, ie. a completely new architecture every few years. If its the way it sounds - you might be buying upgraded K8L chips for years and years to come.

The price to pay for that fast development time down the road is the high up front development cost. Luckily, they've been able to ride the success of the Athlon for years, and have had plenty of time to work out such a long development process.

The Sun Fire X2200 server, driven by the Next-Generation AMD Opteron processor, in combination with Solaris 10 OS and Sun Studio 11 software, trumps the competition with SPECfp2000 score of 3338 and SPECfp_rate2000 result of 117, setting two new x86 world records in 2-socket category. These results surpass the Intel "Woodcrest"-based Dell PowerEdge 1950 SPECfp2000 score of 2818 by 18% and HP DL360 SPECfp_rate200 score of 85 by 38%.

"That's untrue. SUN, Fabric 7 and Cray only offers AMD64 solutions. Intel has SGI only offer Itanic, but SGI BKed. You have to realize that Intel is for ultra low end only, no place in enterprise."

Itanium is something that should be killed and the resources put into a new high-end x86 line of chips -- something beyond Xeon.

However, NEC still is lumbering along with Itanium.

And while Cray did decide to stay with AMD, they did look at Intel recently (from EETimes):

"Last summer, Cray undertook a months-long evaluation of whether it would continue with AMD or switch to Intel as its strategic processor supplier through 2010. After reviewing both companies' road maps, Cray judged AMD's technically superior and thus decided to stay put."

So even though Cray is AMD-only today, we never know when this will change. Maybe in 2010, Cray will be Intel.

However, speculation aside, let us not lose track of the fact that Intel's list of partners is enormous compared to AMD.

Even for today's Opteron Socket F launch, we see a couple 1U motherboards from Supermicro, nothing from Tyan, and a few reasonable boards from Asus.

Sun has two server models on Socket F, but nothing high-end and no workstations. ==> And no ship dates.

Intel processors are the very cause of poverty in the world... a child dies every 2 minutes because of hunger, and Intel's processors are the entire cause.

I hear the Core 2 Duo eats babies.

What a horrible thing for Intel to do... releasing such horrible processors and ruining the world and being mean and being stupid. It's a good thing we have Sharikou here to give us the straight facts.

Right, and your SO damn bright and 'cool' that you actually take the time to write and call others a looser.

Damn I wish I was that cool! I really wish I was as cool as all of you who have nothing better to do than go around calling others loosers... just because they post their opinions/thoughts/theories.

"Intel cores cost what, $100 to make, AMD costs $40. This is obviously a ridiculous lie, why don't you just admit you just make stuff up like a 4th grader?"

He actually has shown proof for most of his theories... go back and read past blogs!!!

But, YOU (and others) on the other hand can't prove him wrong either! Instead of wasting time writting how wrong he is and asking for proof, why don't YOU find proof that indicates the contradiction?

YOU PROVE THAT SHARIKOU IS WRONG!!!

I'll tell you why! That's because it would be too hard for you to do that. Go for it, I dare you! Show me your logic/numbers that contradicts his theories... he has shown you his numbers. Or show me links for which they attempt at putting numbers to these questions!

That's untrue. SUN, Fabric 7 and Cray only offers AMD64 solutions. Intel has SGI only offer Itanic, but SGI BKed. You have to realize that Intel is for ultra low end only, no place in enterprise.

He might be wrong of puting the simpe word by saying all the list above, but he is right for Intel having more ecosystem support. As a pioneer to ALL the existing x86 markets, be it mobile, digital home, server, etc, intel has long established relations with most of the ecosystem partner and that's how intel is able to increase the total market while having more or less 70+ to 80+ % of the market share. (AMD has been always riding on intel on creating new market. On the recent AMD sales and marketing officer interview, he said sourly that intel for being a bigger company should go broaden the market instead of eating to the 20% that AMD currently has)

Only 5% CORE 2 DUO, anyone making MB for that chip will not be able to collect the R&D cost.

Stupid! Yes, it may be true, they won't recover the R&D costs this quarter but this isn't a game that lasts one quarter. Next Q 20% will be Core 2 and the quarter after that maybe 50%... I can see why you're not making business decisions for MoBo makers.

As a pioneer to ALL the existing x86 markets, be it mobile, digital home, server, etc, intel has long established relations with most of the ecosystem partner and that's how intel is able to increase the total market while having more or less 70+ to 80+ % of the market share.

Dude, you are living in ancient times. Today is the AMD64 era and Intel is just an AMD64 clone maker. All major OEMs use/will use AMD in a massive way. HP, DELL, Lenovo are using or will be using AMD in PCes. HP, IBM, SUN, DELL are using or will be using Opteron in servers. SUN and Cray have no plans to use inferior Intel technology. As for market share, AMD is heading to 40% (run rate) exiting 2006. You can expect Intel's revenue to drop to 50% of current level as a result of massive market share loss and price crash.

Intel processors are the very cause of poverty in the world... a child dies every 2 minutes because of hunger, and Intel's processors are the entire cause.

I hear the Core 2 Duo eats babies.

What a horrible thing for Intel to do... releasing such horrible processors and ruining the world and being mean and being stupid. It's a good thing we have Sharikou here to give us the straight facts.

Dude, you are living in ancient times. Today is the AMD64 era and Intel is just an AMD64 clone maker. blahblahblah

i guess you cannot comprehend what market means. Lemme put it on a simple term for you to understand. If there was no a single x86 server which has some useful application, there will be such a x86 server as of today. If there was no such mobile platform (be it wireless, power wise) that is good enuf to stimulate the market, AMD will not join the game trying to reap what intel has sown.

AMD's new pricing is quite interesting. The Opteron are still priced very high, while the Athlon 64 X2 are all priced pretty low, between $150 to $300 (except FX).

That seems to say that, if you are a business customer who wants scalability, power-efficiency, performance and all for your servers, then pay more for Opteron; but if you are a personal user who wants good price-performance computers, then here is Athlon 64 X2.

The only missing part seems to be the high end workstation and enthusiast desktop, where Core 2 Duo does have some performance advantage. On the good side (of Intel), its Core 2 Duo, if ramped up, could occupy the highesst (margin x volume) market; on the bad side, though, it means the scope of Intel's Core 2 Duo microarchitecture is quite limited: it doesn't scale up (multi-processor), nor does it scale down (good performance/price or performance/cache), like the K8.

I was told that AMD's (and Intel's) 64-bit chips are really 64-bit extensions, not true 64-bits like Itanium. True ?

By the same accord then IA-32 would not be "true" 32-bit, since it is an extension to the old 16-bit 8086 instruction set.

Depending on how you defined it, x86_64 CPUs will be "true" 64-bits when they drop support for 32-bit code, thus removing a step in opcode decoding and making it 64-bit only. This wont happen for a loooong time.

Dude, heard of Osborne effect? Intel can only ship 1 million Conroe chips for 3Q06. That's a suicide. AMD has 65nm chips ready since last year, but it didn't ship any. It is working to get the yield at mature level. Intel simply shipped chips when yields are still at 10%.

For that question, you need to understand why DELL decided to go AMD at the time of Conroe release. Conroe was the last straw that pushed DELL to AMD. You also need to understand why Intel will BK in 5 to 7 quarters.

Come to think of it, lots of notebook battery benchmarks seems didn't mention the battery capacity. I'm thinking they might have bigger battery for Core(2) Duo make,and smaller/lighter battery for Turion X2 and in the end most people will "OMG Core(2) last longer."

"Hate who? Intel? No, I don't hate Intel. I just don't have sympathy for it -- it is going BK, which is good for the industry. "

Tell me if INTEL was to really go bankrupt how would this help the industry? It would be more impactive to the industry the if AMD was to go banrkupt.

Lets look at the two schenarios

1) INTEL goes bankrupt...Lets for a moment assume this happens over the next 5 quarters as the Prentender claims. First they'll start showing huge losses by end of this year. Layoff and shutter all their 8" factories. This would be something like 20-30K layoffs. Fabs in Boston, California, COlorado, New Mexico, and Oregon close. Many of their 2nd tier best and brightest leave.. as well. According to the pretender and his hoovering flies. The 4x4 coming out this year will continue to kill INTEL, by middle of next year INTEL MS in severs would drop below 50%, losses continue to mount. They push out 45nm ... Suddenly 2008 INTEL is gone as is 70% of the capacity... AMD with capacity to supply 50% of the market is all along... Guess what like oil prices go thru the roof and Hector and his bandits start making billions with 70% gross margin. You suckers all start paying thru the nose for CPUs again at 1000+ a pop.... AMD can't suplly the market.. its only natural prices go up a lot!

Yup the pretender has lots of sympathy for Hector and his bandits. They have said.. damm the consumer I'm going to nurture my high margin server line. Damm the enthusiasts/gamers benchmarks don't matter.

When you can't win you whine, take out full page adds in paper like a cry baby and claim someone is cheating and call up a bunch of lawyers. Yup that the company the pretender admires. Litigation happy company is good for the industry. A company that can't make money nor supply the volume of CPUs for the industry is good for the industry. Yup... make sense maybe to a lunatic LOL.

“Intel's list of companies working on Intel's next generation chips is all of the above and much more.”

You seem to have missed the main point. Intel’ers keep referring to yesteryear as if it were today. A lot of the movers and shakers on the list are going to dominate there space and want AMD TODAY, which explains AMD market share increase and Intel’s decrease.

What I have just stated to you friend should have been self evident. In the forest there are trees, can you see them now? You can’t, OK how about this, Intel’s list is shrinking and AMD’s list is growing. Can you see? You can, perfect, welcome to the new world of AMD64.

This statement is pure crap and speculation - any information supporting this?

"AMD could have shipped K8L today"

Absoiolutely dead on - I hear it now only takes 1 business day these days to go from design finish to shipping Silicon. Oh wait, come to think of it:1) there's ~2 months to produce the initial development Si,2) an iteration or 2 to address issues, speedpaths, yield, etc...3) a quarter or two to actually produce the product in volume to ship it.

Yeah I'm pretty sure AMD could have shipped K8L by now - of course this would only be if they had finished the design in mid-2005!

"AMD has 65nm chips ready since last year, but it didn't ship any. It is working to get the yield at mature level."

If this is true than AMD is incredibly stupid as this would have helped alleviate many of the capacity issues AMD has today, not to mention buying a bunch of 300mm equipment for 90nm which will not be used for 65nm (~30% of the overall equipment needs), oh and providing a power and performance boost! (I think you have previously claimed ~40%, no?)

"1) INTEL goes bankrupt...Lets for a moment assume this happens over the next 5 quarters as the Prentender claims. First they'll start showing huge losses by end of this year. Layoff and shutter all their 8" factories. This would be something like 20-30K layoffs. ...."

Wrong, wrong, wrong! Technically if Intel's cash flow and reserve cannot pay their liabilities, and forced to default their payment, they are BKed.

They can then enter chapter-11. No one will get layoff. They can emerge from chapter-11 with less debt and everyone still work.

-Longan-

P.S. I personally don't believe Intel would go BK in 5-7 quarter. They have so much fat to cut before reaching BK..., such as, laying off the Netburst engineers and managers and/or cutting the "Itanic" program.

I personally don't believe Intel would go BK in 5-7 quarter. They have so much fat to cut before reaching BK..., such as, laying off the Netburst engineers and managers and/or cutting the "Itanic" program.

It consumes cash short term (severance packages, etc), but assuming the people cut are truly dead weight and will not impact overall production of the company it will result in more cash in the long term (due to lower overhead/salary costs). The duration of time to break even on this depends on the # of people cut and the size of the severance package offered.

Here is a [LINK] which is showing Intels cost per die at $40, prior to 65nm, and being Pentium D.One Pentium D actually has 2 dies. So a single die is half a Pentium D :)And making a single-die dual-core CPU is more expensive than making a 2-die CPU like PD. So, yes, a Pentium D is cheaper to make than an Athlon 64 X2. Core 2 Duo, however, is a single-die dual-core, just like X2. And don't forget that it has a larger cache. Now, why do you think that the cost of production of a Core 2 Duo is comparable with Pentium D? Only because both of them are made by Intel???

Intel rushed to deliver Conroe, and killed all its Netburst revenue. AMD could have shipped K8L today, but AMD is smart.

wow, what a industry-outsider! Do you know what tape-out means? It means the design is ready to send to the fab for fabrication. The first silicon has not even arrived to their validation team yet... and you said they could have shipped K8L today? I would agree people in AMD are smart ... but you ...

The advantage of PDP production over X2 is if one of the die on the PDP is defective it can be trashed w/o wasting the other one. However, for X2 which is a true dual core design the entire thing is wasted. Having said that I have no data on yields, wastage, etc for Intel or AMD. Just throwing this out there.

No sure if Intel is for ultra high-end. AMD CPUs are used in a few super-computers lately, including 1 in US and 1 in Japan.

Supercomputers are not shared memory machines. They are completely different. 2P is basically the king of distributed processing. If Woodcrest owns 2P price/performance, then it owns clustering. Likewise if Opteron owns 2P.

"Wrong, wrong, wrong! Technically if Intel's cash flow and reserve cannot pay their liabilities, and forced to default their payment, they are BKed.

They can then enter chapter-11. No one will get layoff. They can emerge from chapter-11 with less debt and everyone still work.

P.S. I personally don't believe Intel would go BK in 5-7 quarter. They have so much fat to cut before reaching BK..."

Well you are partially right! Just as Sharikou pointed out laying off people doesn't save cash (short term), it consumes alot of it immediatly ($1.5 to $2 billion for 30,000 layoffs is my guess).

Then shutting down FABs, etc will consume alot too, etc.

The idea is that you have to spend your cash (by layoffs) and then prove insolvency if you want to declare chapter 11 (corporate restructure). That way you prove to a juge that through a restructure you can be competitive again... they wipe out your debt and you start over (rough idea of chap. 11).

If Intel was to declare chapter 11 after being insolvent but before layoffs, you couldn't show proper restructuring because you can't pay for the layoffs... thus the juge would opt for chapter 7 instead which is to destroy the company.

In some cases, its actually considered a strategy to go for chapter 11, such as most airliners did after 911.

Assuming things get from bad to worst for Intel, it would probably become their objective to go for chapter 11 ASAP, but only after some other juge has declared they owe AMD $6 billion for being a monopoly and $2 billion plus in non-paid taxes to the government.

Come on you guys - get a grip on this BK thing. If AMD can raise 2.5 bln $ debt is everyone naive to think Intel cannot raise money to keep itself alive. The banker sharks would be there in a second w/ bags full of cash and telling Otellini to get rid off/spin off Itanium and other loss making businesses to drive the EPS up.

And remember, Intel is cleaning house now. They still have a lot of cash in the bank and they are making money still.

Lastly Sharikou - be a man and admit you mis-called the Q2 GAAP loss on Intel probably as a result of which your 5-7 qtr BK call remains 5-7 qtrs even one qtr later. There's no shame in it. You're doing a reasonably good job of analysing a lot of stuff. If you could call everything you're wasting your time here...you would be making more money at Wall Street.

"Now, why do you think that the cost of production of a Core 2 Duo is comparable with Pentium D? Only because both of them are made by Intel???"

Might want to look at die size of 90nm Pentium D(206mm2) compared to Core 2 Duo on 65nm (~143 mm2), but hey you seem to be the expert on these matters!

65nm costs a little more due to the extra metal layer and some changes in processing steps, and relative yield obviously come into play, but I think the costs would be similar given the die area ratios...

1) Intel plans to have four plants online that can produce chips using the 65nm process (compared to one for AMD).

>> Ok so they don't give a timeline, but Intel only had 2 65nm FABs, only recently they have 3.

>> AMD doesn't plan to have one, they will have 2 + outsourcing (Chartered).

2) and the company [Intel] plans to move all of its chips—CPU, RAM, flash, and logic—to 65nm.

>> That is only a dream, the Itanium 2, I believe is only now starting to be processed on 90nm. In order for Intel to do this, they would have to upgrade all FABs (approx 8 to 10) to 65nm. At a cost of around $1.5 billion, Intel would need $7 to $11 billion ON TOP of the already $5 billion it took to upgrade the 3 65nm FABs.

3) In this article, In-Stat wrote:

AMD must rapidly move to a 90nm fabrication process and shift quickly from its ClawHammer Athlon 64 to the 'Paris' core if it's to maintain or even grow its share of the x86 processor market, researcher In-Stat/MDR has warned. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/05/amd_must_focus_on_cost/

>> Wow, these guys you reference seem to know alot about the semiconductor industry. AMD actually DID grow market share all the while pushing 130nm process for as long as economically viable. Now In-Stat (and the rest of the world) is saying that AMD must move to 65nm if it is to keep market share, survive, blah, blah, ...

Second, face the facts:

1) Intel's CPU manufacturing cost per die is around US$40.

>> They are clearly talking about die cost and NOT processor costs. The Pentium D is a dual die, thus twice the cost... we are now talking about $80/chip. Now very close to Sharikou's estimates aren't we?

2) Intel incurs additional costs with its massive R&D bureaucracy.

3) As such, Intel spends an average of $4 billion to $6 billion annually on fab capacity, including both buildings and equipment.

>> Why am I counting the above expenses into the processor? Simple, Sharikou calculates his costs with the companies financials. Which means that the above expenses are (on average) induced into his pricing... like it or not. The above costs have to be amortized into the costs eventually.

>> Read the comments of the article, you'll see that most people disagree with the conclusion of your article.

Here are some comments:

a) Does that just count the cost to operate the fab, or the cost to operate the fab + to build it?

b) Regardless, the cost of R&D of the processor isn't anywhere captured by the $40 figure.

c) Intel has produced in 2005 are all dual core so the actual cost per CPU is $80. Cost per die is NOT a direct indicator of CPU pricing anymore.

d) Is that $40/cpu or $40/good cpu?

Enough said... you should get my point by now!

Third, lets assume that Intel's and AMD's per die cost is the same at $40.

It is a well known fact that the ONLY reason Intel rushed out to 65nm and 300mm wafer manufacturing was to be able to produce its dual core, big-ass cache processors AT THE SAME COST STRUCTURE.

That's right, you heard me correctly!

If Intel paid $40/die on 90nm, 200mm wafers, it now pays $40/die on 65nm, 300mm wafers just because of that damn large shared cache. Capacity has not increased at all. What does that mean? Intel has to spend on more FABs, just like the article points out.

AMD on the other hand reduced its cache. Assuming it also pays $40/die on 90nm, 200mm wafers, AMD's capacity is expected to double. With mature yeilds, that would drop the prices in half... to $20/die. But wait, AMD is going 4-core soon.

That means that if Intel wants to follow suite and compete, they will have to double their processor manufacturing costs. But how will they acheive that?

a) by spending $billions more on extra FABs?b) by rushing to 35nmc) all of the above

Either way its billions of dollars that Intel needs to spend all the while AMD's cost structure is being reduced (move to 35nm).

See how Sharikou (and I) think that Intel is in big trouble eventually?

They are clearly talking about die cost and NOT processor costs. The Pentium D is a dual die, thus twice the cost... we are now talking about $80/chip. Now very close to Sharikou's estimates aren't we?

Sharikou's estimates $100 = Processor + chipset. If we take your estimates $80 for the processor + chipset, it may amount to $100. I think Sharikou is right on this one.

"Now, why do you think that the cost of production of a Core 2 Duo is comparable with Pentium D? Only because both of them are made by Intel???"

If you are going to post as anonymous dont be a punk and bash someone.

My comments and link were to show the cost per die, as found by an independent source, which the Dr. has yet to do in order to back his claims of AMD's $40 per cpu.

Now to get to your questions...

1. I would think that a 65nm part vs a 90nm part would be comparable.

I am not in the semiconductor field, so I a could very well be wrong.

We do not know the yields of Intel, nor the yields of AMD, so really without facts its all speculation.

2. "Only because both of them are made by Intel?"

Really you need to grow up, I made no claims, you are just assuming, so go and assume what I think of you...

Now that you have pissed me off lets look at claims made by someone in/or much closer to the field than I am...

"Manufacturing Comparison

The new Core 2 processors, regardless of L2 cache size, are made up of 291 million transistors on a 143 mm^2 die. This makes the new chips smaller and cheaper to make than Intel's Pentium D 900 series [which are 65nm, not 90nm]. The new Core 2 processors are also much smaller than the Athlon 64 X2s despite packing more transistors thanks to being built on a 65nm process vs. 90nm for the X2s.

Intel's smaller die and greater number of manufacturing facilities results in greater flexibility with pricing than AMD."

Once again your desperation provies only one thing: You are a liar. You lie. You make up lies. You have consistently and shamelessly lied.

The issue is resolved, it was the batteries. Instead of admitting you were wrong (as you are wrong on approximately 95% of your posts) you continue to make ridiculous assertions about the CPU drawing too much power.

Let me start by making it very clear, my point in posting that link was to show an independent sources numbers of cost per die, not speculated numbers from Sharikou.

You may discredit them all you like but they are real, old, but real.

Before I get into your comments, I will ask you to post real numbers as well., please.

"They are clearly talking about die cost and NOT processor costs. The Pentium D is a dual die, thus twice the cost... we are now talking about $80/chip."

That would also apply to AMD, so the cost of the dies for X2 would be $80.

"If Intel paid $40/die on 90nm, 200mm wafers, it now pays $40/die on 65nm, 300mm wafers just because of that damn large shared cache."

Here is a quote from Anand...

"The new Core 2 processors, regardless of L2 cache size, are made up of 291 million transistors on a 143 mm^2 die. This makes the new chips smaller and cheaper to make than Intel's Pentium D 900 series. The new Core 2 processors are also much smaller than the Athlon 64 X2s despite packing more transistors thanks to being built on a 65nm process vs. 90nm for the X2s."

We could speculate all we want, but Sharikou may very wisely be using single die for his cost, he already stated that his $40 figure came from...

"AMD sold 13 million CPUs in 1Q06. Cost was $553 million. Average cost $42. Please note this is averaged over all CPUs, X2, Sempron, Athlon64, Turion, Opteron."

I do not know the percentages of dual and single core, but if you do then we could do the math.

Man this is getting long...

"See how Sharikou (and I) think that Intel is in big trouble eventually?"

I do not think either AMD nor Intel are in any trouble, but if one were, I would have to lean towards AMD, they just bought ATI, they will lose the 80% ATI was doing with Intel in chipsets, $100 million a quarter, plus trying to build a new fab in New York, and having to pay back the loan.

I like the competition, and its better for all of us, I just find the Dr. claims a little thin sometimes.

But thats just my opinion, and it doesn't mean much.

Thanks for your patience with me, as you have already quessed I am not in this field, but do enjoy learning about it.

"That means that if Intel wants to follow suite and compete, they will have to double their processor manufacturing costs. But how will they acheive that?

a) by spending $billions more on extra FABs?b) by rushing to 35nmc) all of the above"

Isn't the PC desktop market close to saturation? I believe both Intel and AMD now should focus on ultra-low power CPU design, rather than making those ever faster or power-hungry processors.

Virtualization is also an important thing. HyperTransport (or CSI?) another. Could it be possible that one day I can connect my notebook and desktop with an HTX link and - boom! - they become a dual-process NUMA machine?

Depending on what type of "supercomputer" you're talking about, this could be true.

"2P is basically the king of distributed processing. If Woodcrest owns 2P price/performance, then it owns clustering."

Woodcrest would own "2P" clustering if no special hardware was used for inter-processor communication nor special OS support for single systm image (i.e. dumb clustering).

Also, it could well be possible that 50 boxes of 4P Opteron outperforms 100 boxes of 2P Woodcrest, with Opteron having the same initial cost and less operating cost. Thus "owning" 2P doesn't always mean owning clustering - far from it.

Intel is thought to be developing its own advanced bus technology called CSI, which may or may not stand for Coherent Scalable Interconnect. Whatever it will be labeled, the rumor is that Intel will be offering a next-generation, processor-to-processor interconnect sometime in 2008. The only problem is that this technology appears to be targeted for the future quad-core Itanium processor (Tukwila), not any x86 Xeon products." from:

CSI stands for Common System Interconnect. It is called "Common" because it is supposed to be common between Xeon and Itanium.

It is interesting to see that one of the SUN benchmarks compares Opteron with Core 2 Duo. Why should they compare an AMD server chip with a Intel desktop chip ? Only reason I can see is that they couldn't beat a Xeon for that benchmark.

Note that this is a marketing capsule from SUN. These are absolutely biased towards their products.

1.AMD has fab 30 in transission to 65nm as of may 06. Fab 36 is capable of 65nm processes now.

2.65nm chips will be out in the 4th Q.

3.The difference between a Duo2 and a X2 in performance are 10% in the real world.

4.200mhz performance difference can not justify the cost of AMD's VS Duo2's.

5.The only compattible mobos for Duo2's cost 200 bucks plus the $250 cost of the lowest end E6300 on average. AMD's X2 3800's and 3600's show almost no performance differences. Plus being low powered. AMD's are the better price per performance per watt deals.

6.The cost of AMD's vs Intels are all by $100 and show only benchmark avantages and do not refect real world performance advantages. AMD's will perform so close to Duo2's you will not feel the performance difference you want nor is worth.

7.When you talk about somebody else and joke on them. You seriously have issues with yourself. Your really talking about yourself or saying it makes you feel better by talking about others. You have low selfasteme and are immuture but can't admit it to yourself or to others why the real reason is that you say mean pointless things to them that are totally off topic. It really shows the persons age when you go that low and your only hurting yourself when you talk about others.

8.K8L is not hyped by AMD. We still know very little about it. Intel is the one that hypes CPU's. Hype comes from rumors or what people create and spread around by themselfs to others, thus is where hype is created. K8L hype? Benches? AMD saying K8L will FRAG everything away? No where in sight. AMD doesn't do this. Its its fans that do this.

Well it would seem your points are null and void. If I am wrong I will gladly say it, and youll know who is saying it.Did you intentionally miss the fact, that Pentium D includes 2 dies in a single package. Obviously a "Pentium D die size", according to Anand is actually the sum of the sizes of the two dies. How do you know if they used Anand's definition of "die" in your first article?

The only bad thing about AMD's quad core is the fact that it will get here at least 6 month from now, 10 at most. Futhermore, they will first push it as opteron and by the time it will get to the awarage Joe it will be like 2008. I dont like that. AMD better start moving or we, fans, will go to some other chipmaker and start worshiping them (for god sake that wont be intel!!! hell, ill better play my games with VIA's chips).

Instead of admitting you were wrong (as you are wrong on approximately 95% of your posts) you continue to make ridiculous assertions about the CPU drawing too much power.

Okay lets play your game. Prove that 95% of them are wrong please...

With the battery thing as I have said before a few times, one possible but RARE situation could be - cpu thermal throttling fails for some reason (as seen INQ.net article), current goes through the roof as heat increases (resistance increases with heat as you should know) and trips a badly made battery into catching alight with higher than specified or higher than normal current draw/power draw. Perfectly logical but wouldn't happen with a normal battery. A faulty battery would be aggrivated into catching alight this way, there are probably quite a few other ways but that would be one of the only ways I could think of explaining how a cpu could trigger a bad battery to go postal.

Also, it could well be possible that 50 boxes of 4P Opteron outperforms 100 boxes of 2P Woodcrest, with Opteron having the same initial cost and less operating cost. Thus "owning" 2P doesn't always mean owning clustering - far from it.

2 2P boxes are almost always less expensive than 1 4P box. If total distributed computing power is your goal, then more numbers of 2P boxes is what you want. Two 2P machines will fill the same rack space as 1 4P machine, but cost 20% less.

Operating costs of one 4P machine may be lower than two 2P machines, but I'd guess they consume close to the same amount of power (since all CPUs will be on full blast pretty much all the time), so I'd guess they'd be close.

5.The only compattible mobos for Duo2's cost 200 bucks plus the $250 cost of the lowest end E6300 on average. AMD's X2 3800's and 3600's show almost no performance differences. Plus being low powered. AMD's are the better price per performance per watt deals.

The bottom line is, Intel does not improve the FP performance because there are very few who care about FP performance. On most workloads that matter, Woodcrest owns opteron, and that's a fact.

You got it exactly the opposite. For massively clustered systems, FP performance is the key. That's why AMD focused on keeping a 38% performance lead over Intel on FP performance. People buy clusters for HPC applications. Intel has no place in that market.

In transactional applications, what you need is large SMP boxes, such as SUN's x4600 8P 16 core Opteron server that smashes 16P Itanium 2. Woodcrest is not even in this market, as it's only low end 2P. Also, if you look at Apache server performance, a 2.8GHZ Opteron clearly beats a 3GHZ Woodcrest.

In essence, Woodcrest is no good for any type of HPC or server computing. It might be good for some workstation loads, but that market is very small. Only about 20,000 units per quarter. BTW, SUN owns half of that market with Opteron.

For these 2 Opteron 2218's they are 96.2 vs 117, a crapload bigger of a difference. Not saying Sun cheated, but a processor can only go so fast which makes me a little skeptical. Most of the 5160 2P results are all pretty close - within 10% or so.

Look at SuperMicro's results for Woodcrest 3GHZ, the SpecFp_rate scores are about 70, much lower than the 85 score by Dell and HP. No surprise that SUN can run Opteron faster. In fact, we should expect IBM to produce some even better scores for Opteron.

Did you intentionally miss the fact, that Pentium D includes 2 dies in a single package.

The Smithfield is 2 90nm die, total area 206mm^2, packaged together in a MCM. The Athlon64 X2 is a single 90nm die, area 199mm^2, and the DDR2 rev grows to 220mm^2. What does this mean in terms of yield and die cost?

Let's assign Intel as the baseline. They have 2 103mm^2 die, which means high yield due to small die size. Remember that defect density is measured as function of defects/cm^2, and the larger the die size, the more likely a die is lost due to a defect. So if we assume .1 defects/cm^2, we have roughly 10% of the die lost to defects, or 553/good dpw (300mm, 90% of space can be filled with usable die). Assume an additional 2% yield loss due to the inability to rework MCMs at test and you get 542/dpw.

Now let's look at AMD. Let's assume they are using 300mm wafers as well (for the cost per wafer savings), and they, despite the additional process integration complexity of SOI and less time in production at 90nm, are yielding 10% better than Intel- 0.09 defects/cm^2. The larger die size means that they can ~85% of the die are usable, so taking that +defect yield into account, the X2 and X2DDR2 would yield at 82% and 80% (1-(area*defect/area)), or 256 and 232 good dpw, respectively.

So... that means thanks to the smaller die size, there are 271 Pentium D's /wafer, 256 X2s, and 232 X2 DDR2s. This means that in order to be cheaper die cost than the Pentium D, AMD's wafer cost would need to be 5-14% cheaper than Intel's wafer cost.

Go ahead. Pick at the numbers. Tell me that AMD is making those die at half the cost, even when Intel is plunking 2 pieces of silicon for every shipper. Show me numbers that make sense, and I'll be the first to admit you have a point. Otherwise, STFU and go back to comparing Quake4 framerates. I won't argue with you on those- cause I don't care.

Correction to my previous post, as I had an error in my spreadsheet. The yields for X2 and X2 w/ DDR2 were correct at 82 and 80%, but the good dpw were not: they should have been 248 and 219 (not 256 and 232) respectively.

That means AMD wafer cost needs to be 9 and 19% (as opposed to 5 and 14%) lower than Intel's even with 10% better defect yield in order to have a lower die cost, all other factors equal.

No, R&D is not a variable cost. If you think it gets factored into die cost, go back and look at an accounting book.

That is very bad news. AMD best case is going to see limited volume of true quad-core no earlier then middle of 2007 at the very best. That assumes the only have one full stepping and one dash stepping to catch all the bugs.

by the way. opteron k8l is shipping mid 2007. when do you expect quad core consumer cpus? end 2007 begin 2008?

AM2 = quad-core compatible

Henri Richard, EVP AMD :"We're now introducing AM2, and of course AM2 will be quad-core compatible.[...]And the fact that the AM2 socket allows us to have a seamless transition to quadcore tells me that I can buy a 4×4 platform, in the later part of this year, and then take it to eight cores sometime in 2007. And that's phenomenal.[...]Our plan is to have both dual-core and quad-core K8L-based processors within the same timeframe. The K8L development, from the ground up, is a quad-core development."

AMD's major advantage over Intel is APM 3.0, which allows very quick production cycle and ramp. Intel has to dedicate an entire FAB for one line of CPUs. AMD makes all of their CPUs in one FAB. That makes all the difference. AMD already demoed K8L behind closed doors and we can expect mass production in 1H07.

Go ahead. Pick at the numbers. Tell me that AMD is making those die at half the cost, even when Intel is plunking 2 pieces of silicon for every shipper.

Dude, there are people who always try to solve simple problems in muddy minded ways. We are here to estimate the cost of a processor, which include1) material cost2) equipment cost (depreciation)3) factory cost4) labor cost....

Now, you can go on and on with each of the item, and you see that's a crap minded way of doing estimation and is unreliable because you don't know many of the parameters.

AMD publishes a quarterly financial report. In 1Q06, its total cost is $553 million (including everything I listed above and more), AMD sold 13 million CPUs in 1Q06. Now, go compute the average cost per boxed CPU.

Do the same for Intel, except Intel also makes chipsets. That's how I estimated that Intel's CPU+chipset combined cost is $100.

--I realize you don't know anything about chip design or manufacturing so I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

The manufacturing piece is not why it takes so long to get from tapeout to production. Instead, it is the testing/post-Si validation and debug, along with the required respins of the chip to get a part that is ready for the market.

Here is a hint for you: How many CPUs have you ever purchased that are A0 stepping?

The manufacturing piece is not why it takes so long to get from tapeout to production. Instead, it is the testing/post-Si validation and debug, along with the required respins of the chip to get a part that is ready for the market.

Dude, Manufacturing is a lengthy process. For Intel, it takes almost three months to produce a finished chip. AMD has reduced that time by almost half. For the first Opteron, it took AMD almost 10 months from tape out to launch. Expect the time to be shortened to 7 months. That is, expect K8L in 2Q07 if not 1Q07.

Where were you when I was trying to tell your Intel buddies that the larger the die, the more probability of defect is (on the same process)? They didn't seem to believe me!!

Anyway, nice numbers but you are missing on thing... (and I don't know any facts about this, I'm only making an educated guess).

You are calculating material and physical costs, but what about operational and labor costs?

What if there are an average of 0.3 employees per 10K processor for AMD and an average of 0.7 for Intel (half drinking coffee and napping under the production line... thats bureaucracy at its finest).

What if it costs $10,000/minute to operate the machines. And since AMD has a reduced and enhanced manufacturing process (APM), they can produce 1000 wafers per hour, while Intel can only process 750 per hour?

Don't bash me for the above examples, I know they sound weird, but if your IQ is anywhere above average you'll get my point.

APM has nohthign to do with turning around a TO to silicon faster.. did that retard pretender really say that... Laughing really hard

APM is used to tweek the tools based on realtime data to improve targeting inline to improve performance and yields... Go back to school and earn a real PhD.

The dudes are also wrong about how long it takes to run a lot thru fab. I'll wager AMD/INTEL aren't that much differnt. But think about this. INTEL has how many fabs up and running vs AMD. Who has more time to reserve tools or has multiple tools and resource to make a lot run the fastest.. PSS it'll be a big fab company.. like TSMC or INTEL.. not AMD... does it make sense flies and the shitter?

Debug and testing can be faster or shorter then the time it takes to process, but not always. First stepping on a new architecture has many risks; debug, logic synthesis bugs, testing holes, platform validation, firmware optimiztion, speed path optmization.

Sure faster sounds like a good plan, but as complexity increases we'll see.

I'll say again AMD samples maybe in Q2, volume no way till late Q3 best case..

"2 2P boxes are almost always less expensive than 1 4P box. If total distributed computing power is your goal, then more numbers of 2P boxes is what you want."

That's probably true for Intel Xeons where FSB is the bottleneck, and it makes little sense to go from 2P to 4P.

"Operating costs of one 4P machine may be lower than two 2P machines, but I'd guess they consume close to the same amount of power"

I'd guess differently:

1) You need 2 sets of power supplies, chipsets, and power regulators for 2P boxes, compared to 4P ones, each consuming extra power.

2) operating cost also includes (more importantly) management. Twice the number of boxes incurs almost double managing effort.

In short, the 4P Opteron boxes are 20% more expensive because they worth it for the performance increase and operating cost reduction. The same cannot be said about Xeon. True, Woodcrest outperforms Opteron on a number of benchmarks at 2P, but those tier-1 server manufacturers are going more for Opteron for some good reasons.

Sharikou said: "AMD publishes a quarterly financial report. In 1Q06, its total cost is $553 million (including everything I listed above and more), AMD sold 13 million CPUs in 1Q06. Now, go compute the average cost per boxed CPU."

Sharikou, you have conveniently picked the one data point which shows the highest gross margin. The Q1'06 margin can be due to a number of factors, including a change of product mix going into the inventory.

Sharikou, you have conveniently picked the one data point which shows the highest gross margin. The Q1'06 margin can be due to a number of factors, including a change of product mix going into the inventory.

Did you know Spansion IPOed in December 2005? AMD only makes CPUs now.

All of this arguing about manufacturing costs and who's in bigger trouble will settle itself in the near future.

Wait for the Q3 results, and then extrapolate. If you see a momentum change in favor of Intel (i.e. stable market share or taking back MSS), then expect AMD to be in a hell of a lot of trouble, as there is usually a 6 month lag in products going to market and shifts in consumer trends (i.e. C2D should have an impact on Q1 or Q2 2007 and beyond). If however, the momentum builds in AMD's favor, things could prove just as bad for Intel, as they've really bet the farm on their new wonder-chip to win the hearts and minds of consumers.

Expect both companies to show poor profits based on the current price war. It wouldn't suprise me if AMD is in the red again for 3Q2006.

But here's what I found interesting. Most of the AMD dual core parts are not in stock...they are all order and will ship directly from manufacturer in 3-15 days. The only thing in stock seemed to be the X2 3800+ to the tune of 18454 with another 18399 coming in:

Now what do you make of that. Unless I got this wrong, it seems like AMD is banking on their lowest end dual core part at $ 162 moving and have vested their capacity there. But it's not moving. Any thoughts...?

"LORDY, SO MANY things can happen in a few hours. First, Stoolman at Xtremesystems, the place to be seen for any famous overclocker, got a sample of the Kentsfield E6700, which is basically a quad-core version of the E6700, clocked at 2.67GHz. Well, that could be it, but wait. He took the chip and overclocked it to 4.75GHz. Obviously, he used some hardcore solutions like liquid nitrogen, but he proved that teh chippery can reach over 4GHz. His benchmarks did not show a huge difference when compared to a dual dual-core 3GHz Woodcrest, however." - The Inquirer

"APM has nohthign to do with turning around a TO to silicon faster.. did that retard pretender really say that... Laughing really hard"

Then what does "Best-in-Class Production Cycle Time" mean? AMD's fab 30 has days per masking layer only half of the industry worst and 3/4 of the average. See page 18 of Daryl Ostrander's 2006 presentation.

You can disbelieve Sharikou and AMD's claims however you want, but you should really go home to learn some manner before you critisize others.

I'm really fed-up by all these bashing in some comments that presume themselves to be right without any slight effort to prove it. Just because you bash with strong words doesn't make your ideas a bit more credible (quite in the contrary, in fact).

"You are calculating material and physical costs, but what about operational and labor costs?"

True. In fact, I'd guess that operational and labor costs dominate the total cost. That's how foundries in Taiwan and Korea (who do not produce raw materials nor make litho machines) outperform those in Japan and US.

You are calculating material and physical costs, but what about operational and labor costs?

Accounting 101. Operational and labor costs are FIXED. Die cost is determined by the incremental cost to produce another die. Also known as VARIABLE cost. Cost of sales is not the issue here- unless AMD or Intel shutters or builds out a fab, hires or fires workers, those costs are not incremental to produce additional die. Number of designers doesn't factor in, nor does the depreciation.

That is why the industry calculates cost per wafer, and why good die per wafer is such a critical metric. I realize you find it "crap-minded" but that is the business model in the entire industry. If you can not wrap your head around the concept, I'm sorry, but that's not my fault. I held your hand, and walked you through it very logically. I was extraordinarily generous to AMD in the analysis, giving them a 10% defect yield advantage, despite the inherent yield limitations of their 90nm process having 2 additional metal layers (which also incurs additional masking and process costs) and the added complexity/difficulty/expense of SOI wafers vs. traditional epi wafers. AMD in all likelihood has higher wafer cost because of these factors, and the fact that they have less ability to negotiate good terms with their suppliers than Intel. Seriously, if you are buying chemicals or wafers for 3 factories, do you think you can get as good a deal as the company buying for 10 or 15? Do you think AMD gets better deals than TSMC does? If you think so, do you think that your corner computer shop pays more or less than HP or Dell?

One last thing: I find it HIGHLY amusing that you are factoring in packaging, heat-sinks, and fans into your per die costs. I mean I was almost crying I was laughing so hard. I'll leave you to find the numbers, but I'll pose the questions: 1. What percentage of processors that AMD and Intel ships are boxed? What percentage are trays? Hint: Major builders such as Dell, Sun, HP, and every other big brand buy... trays, which are just that- CPUs, sans heatsinks, in plastic bulk trays.

2. What is the price premium for boxed processors in the channel over tray processors? Do you think the price premium covers the packaging, HSF costs, with maybe a little margin for AMD and Intel, or do you think they are charitable towards smaller buyers and cut them a break? When you quote 1000 CPU pricing on your blog, do you think those are retail box prices?

Looking forward to a response. Seriously- don't disappoint me now. And please- try to use some numbers- I've been stating my assumptions and doing all the proofs- rise to the challenge.

Looking forward to a response. Seriously- don't disappoint me now. And please- try to use some numbers- I've been stating my assumptions and doing all the proofs- rise to the challenge.

Dude, learn to think straight and have some IQ. Your mind is getting even more muddy as you now tries to figure out how much % are boxed CPUs with heatsink&fans. I told you to think straight. All we here to do is to estimate the average cost of a AMD CPU. AMD CPUs come in different sizes and colors and weights, understand? We are here to compute average cost. The cost include equipment depreciation, FAB depreciation, materials, labor, utility, and a lot of other items. The total cost was $553 million in 1Q06, and total number of CPUs (Opterons, Turions, Athlon64, Semprons...) was 13 million. The average cost per finished CPU is $42. Depreciation was $141 million, that's $11 per CPU. Therefore total material, labor and utility cost per AMD CPU was $31.

Have some IQ, dude. If I were your boss, I will fire you right away for wasting my time.

Sharikou - you are over simplifying this calculation trying to prove your point. Dr Yield is probably bringing a level of detail you can't cope w/ and you're shutting him down because you don't have the answer. Just estimating average cost means nothing. And when AMD or Intel talk gross margin they do not include fixed costs like labour who must be paid whether you make 1 cpu or 100 million. If someone is smarter or knows more which doesn't help you prove your point, have the grace to admit it. Bashing Dr Yield doesn't make you a bigger man...as bashing you doesn't make anyone else here bigger.

Wrong. Go back and read my post. I'll clip the relevant section:Operational and labor costs are FIXED. Die cost is determined by the incremental cost to produce another die. Also known as VARIABLE cost.

That is accounting. When you see MDR/InStat reports, those are the numbers they look at. Not fixed + variable cost. Try again, and maybe without the name calling this time. I still haven't seen PhD level logic applied, or an ability to learn when someone attempts to broaden your understanding on a subject you clearly aren't an expert on. But that's ok- if you are willing to learn, you probably can...

Dr Yield is probably bringing a level of detail you can't cope w/ and you're shutting him down because you don't have the answer. Just estimating average cost means nothing. And when AMD or Intel talk gross margin they do not include fixed costs like labour who must be paid whether you make 1 cpu or 100 million.

Wrong. I am always impatient with retards. The cost of production is listed in the income statement. This cost include (1) depreciation of FAB and equipment (2) raw materials and utility (3) labor. The gross margin is the revenue minus the cost.

Now, there are other costs, R&D and SG&A. This cost is listed as a separate item.

What we are trying to do here is to estimate the average cost of an AMD CPU, and we have $40 per finished CPU. What else do you want? You want to take out depreciation? Fine. Then the material and labor cost for a finished CPU is $31 for AMD. This is an average. It doesn't matter different CPUs have different yields, testing and packaging cost, we only interested in average. And the average cost is $42. Average material and labor cost is $31. Now, you keep ask the stupid question of the cost of making a good die. I don't know. You can go crap minded and trying to get SOI wafer prices, AMD discounts, yields, die sizes, material costs, Dresden average salary, electricity and water prices, Malaysia salary, % of boxed CPUs, heatsink&fan prices...but that's totally crap minded.

I still haven't seen PhD level logic applied, or an ability to learn when someone attempts to broaden your understanding on a subject you clearly aren't an expert on.

Dude, learn to think straight. I didn't even bother to read your lengthy ramblings as they have nothing relevant to AMD or Intel. You can spend days talking general crap, copy and paste from industry reports. Nobody is interested.

All we want to know is the average cost of a finished AMD/Intel CPU, and I tell you, it's $42. Intel, on the other hand, is close to $100 (CPU+chipset). That's important information people like to know.

With your lengthy ramblings, can you tell us what's Intel and AMD cost per finished CPU in dollar amount?

Learn to open your mind, and learn. You clearly haven't the foggiest idea about accounting, fab production, or anything that doesn't agree with your world view. I explained, neutral of AMD/Intel politics why you are off base. You have no interest in raising the level of the blog to a place where people can learn squat- so I'll just bugger off and go somewhere else where people are interested in reasonable discourse and learning something about the industry. Clearly you aren't. Keep pumping, and I'll check in every now and then to see if Intel is still "headed for bankruptcy". Twit.

I didn't even bother to read your lengthy ramblings as they have nothing relevant to AMD or Intel.

Clearly, you are too stupid to tell that they have everything to do with AMD and Intel. You want me to pull a number out of my ass like you do? Um, Intel average die cost is, um, $38! 10% better. Happy?

You're right, it IS easier to pull numbers out of my ass! Thanks, Sharikou, my life just got so much better!

Let me explain one last time on my way out the door, in language even you can understand:

You clearly haven't the foggiest idea about accounting, fab production, or anything that doesn't agree with your world view.

Dude, you don't have a view. You are wasting our time. I don't see you saying anything relevant at all to AMD/Intel. You are talking about marginal cost -- a general concept in any mass production. What you were doing was plug CPU into the definition of marginal cost.

Dr. Yield, PhD, MBA, stop spewing low IQ crap here. Your argument on my estimate of Intel+chipset combined average cost is totally retarded. I was making the best estimate for Intel. I estimated the average Intel CPU+chipset cost is $100. Now, you crap minded are saying that Intel doesn't have 100% of the chipset market, as if that works to Intel's advantage. Assmuming Intel has X% (X le 100) of chipset biz. We now have, for Intel,

You can disbelieve Sharikou and AMD's claims however you want, but you should really go home to learn some manner before you critisize others.

I'm really fed-up by all these bashing ...

are you refering to the blog owner as well? he has been calling people low IQ, retard, etc. Or do you have double standard? (i'm not sure if he called people moron or not, but i'm sure his fren mad mike did)

First, Mojo, try going to a real online vendor. Newgg.com has the entire X2 series in stock. So they are available. The fact that some vendors are running out attests to the fact that AMD is selling them as fast as they can ship them, unlike Intel, which is likely going to exceed that disgusting $4.3B inventory (ack!!!).

Second, Dr. Yield, what Sharikou is trying to tell you is that the actual die cost isn't a critical cost factor that we look at when determining who's in better position, price wise, in this price war. The die cost is only a factor in the critical numbers of Average cost and Average Selling Price. The average cost of the CPU is material cost plus burden (overhead). The ASP is the average cost that the CPU's sold for. So when we want to know who's got the cheaper chip, one needs only look at the total cost and divide it by the CPU's sold, which Sharikou has done.

This gives you the average cost that AMD must pay to get a CPU (the finished product) onto the shelf of the oem or distibuter. If, after depreciation, it costs AMD just $31 to produce a salable CPU, and Intel's die cost is at, or even near, $40, which is before additional costs of packaging and burden rates are added, then AMD clearly has an advantage. Now, I expect, as the dual cores become a greater percentage of the CPU's shipped, for AMD's cost per CPU to go up to around $45-50, but certainly nowhere near their current ASP, as one of the hottest selling X2's is selling for nearly $150, which likely means AMD is selling it for $125-140 depending on the OEM/Distributor.

Of course, many of the exact numbers are hidden, so we can only estimate based on what numbers are available, but clearly Intel has really underestimated AMD, and overestimated their position. P4's are piling up and Intel can't produce Conroe's fast enough to make a dent. On top of that Opteron continues to beat out all Xeons (including Woodcrest) for server business. Then when you look at Dell taking on AMD, that's a lost sale for Intel and a gained sale for AMD for a net of +2 AMD for every CPU sold to Dell.

And to really throw some fire on everything, go to Laptoplogic.com and look at their Turion X2 Close-Up review and see that the latest revision of the Turion is coming in at much lower deep sleep state power usage than Intel's Pentium M or Core Duo and Core 2 Duo lines. Not good for Intel. They are loosing the market share in servers, and fast, and they are looking at a lot of lost sales coming up in the laptop area. They are already getting beaten pretty good in desktops. Not good at all.

[quote]Average total cost is the cost of making all of the widgets divided by the number of widgets made. If one widget costs $10,000 for the machinery plus $600 for the workforce and material, and the second widget only costs $50 (for the material) but doesn't require extra machinery or workers, the average cost for those widgets would be $5,325, the total cost ($10,650) divided by the number of widgets (2).

Average cost is often, but not always, greater than Marginal cost. Once you pay for the machinery and workers, it doesn't cost much to make one more widget. While the average cost described above is thousands of dollars, the marginal cost in the same situation is only $50 (for the supplies). When you make more widgets, the average price decreases. If you made 10 widgets, and each widget after the first costs $50, the average price would be 1,110, the total cost ($11,100) divided by the number of widgets (10). This is called economies of scale: the bigger your operation is, the cheaper you can make one more widget.

The Average total cost could also be found by adding the Average variable cost and the Average fixed cost for a widget.[/quote]

As technical and educated dr. yield/...'s explanations may be, they are irrelevant, as Sharikou is talking about average cost of producing a CPU, a concept very different from marginal costs.

It's great that dr. yield even put in bold the word "incremental" because that's exactly not what average cost is about. You are talking about the marginal cost of producing another die, not the average cost of producing a CPU which is the point of discussion.

Dr. Yield was applying the wrong analysis to the problem. If one was looking at Intel alone, marginal cost would be relevant to determine how profits would rise with scale. However, we were trying to see which company has a lower average cost to win a price war. In this case, the one with lower average cost will win as it can flood the market and cause the competitor to lose both unit share and have lower unit price. This is the situation Intel is in today. AMD simply denied Intel's the oppurtunity to dump Netburst at a good price by slashing X2 prices while maintaining good profitability. Intel is bound to lose because its higher cost and lower market share.

This price war is different than previous ones in one major aspect: AMD now has the capacityt to compensate the lower prices.

P4's are piling up ..AMD simply denied Intel's the oppurtunity to dump Netburst at a good price by slashing X2 prices ...

i'm really wondering you are fit to do analysis.Q1'06 intel has stock level of XQ2'06 intel has stock level if X+750M which mainly the C2D, broadwater, and its motherboard. (i know Sharikou wanna argue there is only '200M' of C2D. Go listen to the sharing again. The 200M was referring to the $$ saved because of the supposed enginnering sample, turn out to be production quality - intel was expecting another stepping)

Put the C2D stuff aside, the rest of inventory keep flat, which means customers brought the Y amount, and intel produce another Y amount. The Y is bigger than X. Y is some where 8 bil (intel Q2 revenue), X is around 4 bil.

Conclusion, nothing is piling, Intel just keep producing the rest of chip (P4, PM, CD, motherboard, etc) to keep the factory fully loaded; in another word, lower cost in producing these and able to use them in price war.

And for those that still cannot comprehend, let's put it this way. If the piling is true, the intel Q2 revenue will be lower than X, because the X inventory are not selling good.

"AMD simply denied Intel's the oppurtunity to dump Netburst at a good price by slashing X2 prices while maintaining good profitability. Intel is bound to lose because its higher cost and lower market share."

Please do the match to justify this claim.

No fancy formulas please, just humor us with the numbers. I can't understand formulats as I am a low IQ, idiot that you claim.

But I have a BS/PhD from a top 3 engineering school and work at a company that probably drives your computer.

Show me the numbers .. no fancy formulas. Like your CEO BS... fancy plans are nothing, must deliver the numbers.

1) Show me the average CPU cost for AMD.. and the impact and inlcude the impact of the 50% price cut they did in Q3.

2) Show me the average CPU cost for INTEL. Remember in Q3 they will sell of excess Pentium4 inventory they've already made. All their capacity should be on Conroe, Merom, Woodcreast. Do the math based on die-size, back calculated from the known Prescott die size and dual-single core mix... and tell me giving the stack up of the total conversion to Core2 what the profit picture looks like.

use your brain. Intel can only ship 1million Conroes in 7 weeks. That's consistent with the 200 million number Andy B said.

you cannot comprehend what ramp means? In another word, Intel said it expect to produce 1 mil in first 7 weeks. I bolded the 'first' for you because you cannot understand the word 'ramp'.

and as of the transcript link that you provided, read this excerptJoe Osha - Merrill Lynch

You are saying that you qualified Conroe more quickly than thought, so those wafers become part of inventory as opposed to just flowing through the P&L, right?

Andy Bryant

That's correct, and that was about $200 million worth.

Get you friend to interpret for you if you cannot get what it means.

and another excerpt hereThe other thing that happened was we shipped from previously reserved inventories, so some of the lower-end mix products, I did not expect to ship those things. When I shipped those and replaced them with higher value dual-core in inventory, again, it grows a little bit.

You are saying that you qualified Conroe more quickly than thought, so those wafers become part of inventory as opposed to just flowing through the P&L, right?

Andy Bryant

That's correct, and that was about $200 million worth.

I don't know how you crap minded read this. But this is crystal clear. Originally, Intel expected to qual Conroe in Q3(there would be 0 Conroe inventory for Q2). But it qualed in Q2, and those wafers become inventory, 200 mil of it. We don't know if this was true. It might well be Intel's trick to boost earnings....

The $750 mil was Intel's total additional inventory build up in the Q. For that Andy B explained:

in terms of inventory levels, I will give a long-winded answer, because I also want to explain a little bit about the second quarter, which [multiple speakers] …up over $750 million. If you remember at the beginning of the quarter, we expected a little less than half of that. We knew we would be trying to ramp Broadwater in that period of time. We did not expect Conroe to qualify until the third quarter.

I don't know how you crap minded reached a conclusion that $750 mil additional inventory was all Conroe+broadwater+woodcrest.

You are saying that you qualified Conroe more quickly than thought, so those wafers become part of inventory as opposed to just flowing through the P&L, right?

Andy Bryant

That's correct, and that was about $200 million worth.

I don't know how you crap minded read this. But this is crystal clear. Originally, Intel expected to qual Conroe in Q3(there would be 0 Conroe inventory for Q2). But it qualed in Q2, and those wafers become inventory, 200 mil of it. We don't know if this was true. It might well be Intel's trick to boost earnings....

The $750 mil was Intel's total additional inventory build up in the Q. For that Andy B explained:

in terms of inventory levels, I will give a long-winded answer, because I also want to explain a little bit about the second quarter, which [multiple speakers] …up over $750 million. If you remember at the beginning of the quarter, we expected a little less than half of that. We knew we would be trying to ramp Broadwater in that period of time. We did not expect Conroe to qualify until the third quarter.

I don't know how you crap minded reached a conclusion that $750 mil additional inventory was all Conroe+broadwater+woodcrest.

I don't know how you crap minded reached a conclusion that $750 mil additional inventory was all Conroe+broadwater+woodcrest.

I didn't say 'all', i said 'mainly'; which again, further supported by the excerpt that u put in. I also put in another excerpt in my previous post which indicate where the non-C2D related inventory came from. The same excerpt is also used to indicate to you that most of the old stock ar out, and replenished with new stocks - which partially invalidated your claim on piling.

in case you do not understand the word 'mainly' and 'all'. Go get english tuition.

And you don't seems to argue on the 7 weeks 'ramp' and i'd guess you understand the 'ramp' now. it's good to learn a new english word right? :)

ops, my command of english if not that great at all! :) i was actually trying to tell you quite the same thing of what you telling me in that paragraph. my bad :)

allow me to re-explain it again.there was 200M C2D inventory gain from the early qual. Once qualed, Intel can produce more C2D. So, what i was trying to say is that there was 200M + z C2D in the inventory. but again, I (guess I) was wrong on the extra z as i can't prove it from the link.

anyway, my comment on the no singificant non C2D related product pile up still hold true.

which english tuition center that you plan to go? let's go together :)

there was 200M C2D inventory gain from the early qual. Once qualed, Intel can produce more C2D. So, what i was trying to say is that there was 200M + z C2D in the inventory. but again, I (guess I) was wrong on the extra z as i can't prove it from the link.

anyway, my comment on the no singificant non C2D related product pile up still hold true.

Intelers have low IQ -- proven again. You read the words, but they don't mean anything to you. There were two numbers, $750 mil increase in total inventory, $200 mil due to Conroe qual in Q2. Crystal clear here. This is consistent with the projection that Conroe is 5% of Intel units in Q3.

anyway, here is the break out:andy ...up over $750 million. If you remember at the beginning of the quarter, we expected a little less than half of that. . We knew we would be trying to ramp Broadwater in that period of time. We did not expect Conroe to qualify until the third quarter.

There was an expected up take from Broadwater (may be inclusive of motherboard), which from the statement above, I assume the inventory level to be 750/2 ~ 375M. 200M of C2D.

there are about 200M surplus of othe r product, which part of those are from PD, etc.

The surplus is not caused by piling, but new batch of manufactured products.

Had about 3.55b (i duno, i just used 4.3 - .75)of inventory at ealry Q2, manufactured about 8.x bil of producted, left with 4.3b products (~575M mainly C2D related) at end of q2, with about 8b revenue. Did it indicate any sign of significant 'piling'?

btw, please do not treat the above number seriously as i do not have enoguh informtion. i'm just using them to make my points

yes, it is crystal clear that 200M due to qual. What i though is that there might be z value of extra C2D that intel built after qual. Intel start shiping C2D as early as early june. That made me think that Intel would have build the extra z, on top of the 200M resulted from that qual. Since i can't prove it, I just take the stand that i'm wrong.

A 80486 never reached the bandwidth of a system with 80 MHz and 64 bits per transfer. The fater had 50 MHz and 32bit transfer. So I can think you are some type of small child that dont know math very well.And, I´m Brazillian, dont tell me about my erros of grammar.